Swimmers

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT SWIMMERS - PAGE 5

Young swimmers enjoy competitiveness, making new friends By John Papendick jpapendick@aberdeennews Other sports will come and go, but all-around athlete Kirstyn Fiala sees herself swimming for a lifetime. ?I like being in the water,? said the 13-year-old from Miller who will be an eighth-grader this fall. ?And I like the competitiveness of it. Also, I like being around so many people who are so dedicated to it. You have to put in a lot of work to be a swimmer. It is fun to be around people who love what you love to do.?

MOORHEAD, Minn. - Samantha Gunning of the Northern State University women's swimming team won two events Friday in the Dragon Invite in Moorhead. She won the 200-yard butterfly in 2 minutes, 14.31 seconds and the 400-yard individual medley in 4:55.69. The Wolves also got two seconds on the first day of the meet in the newly remodeled Alex Nemzek Pool featuring state-of-the-art starting blocks. Amanda Taylor got second in the 200-yard backstroke while NSU teammates Allie Samuels got second in the 200-yard breaststroke.

Michael Andrew of Aberdeen rewrote the record books on Sunday at the Winter High Point Meet in Aberdeen. The 8-year-old Andrew broke three state records. ?Michael won all of his events,? Aberdeen Swim Club coach Elyce Kastigar said. ?He achieved a number of state records at this meet. He is having an outstanding season. This will be his last season at 8-and-under and that is quite an accom- plishment.? Andrew broke records in the 25-yard freestyle, 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle.

Paul Jones calls his job a hobby, but he is also very serious about his role as a USA Swimming National Evaluator. The Detroit, Mich., resident has evaluated at several national championship meets and four Olympic trials. The Aberdeen Swim Club contacted Jones and asked if he would evaluate this weekend's South Dakota state championships, which conclude today at the Aberdeen Family YMCA. ?My role here is I'm evaluating officials and their positions,? Jones said. ?I'm also doing a lot of training, a lot of coaching, a lot of mentoring of the officials and looking at need for the program and operation and how we run things so that the Aberdeen Swim Club can grow.

Former Aberdeen resident Michael Andrew has turned pro - the youngest swimmer in American history to do so. The 14-year-old, 6-foot-4, 180-pounder who is home-schooled in Lawrence, Kan., also signed his first endorsement deal with the high-performance nutrition supplement maker P2 Life. Terms of the deal are unknown. With the deal, Andrew is no longer eligible to swim in high school or NCAA collegiate competition. Andrew has broken 32 National Age Group swimming records, and has drawn comparisons to Michael Phelps, who turned pro at 16. Andrew's parents, Peter and Tina, are former swim coaches in Aberdeen.

Members of the Aberdeen Swim Club rewrote the record books to conclude their summer. A total of a dozen new overall state records were set by a quartet of ASC swimmers, including seven by Hannah Kastigar. Among the overall state records that Kastigar set during the NCSA Championships in Indianapolis, Ind., were the 100-meter breaststroke, 200-meter butterfly, 50-meter butterfly, 400-meter individual medley, 400-meter freestyle, 50-meter backstroke and 200-meter individual medley.

Northern State's women swimmers had a record-breaking weekend at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships in Grand Junction, Colo. Seven Wolves broke 10 school records at the meet. Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference schools with swimming programs are associate members of the RMAC in swimming. The women of Incarnate Word of Texas won the nine-team, three-day event by scoring 896 points. NSU was in a battle for fifth place but finished a few points out of that race to score 252 for seventh place.

When Michael Andrew exited the pool after the Candy Cane Meet at Watertown last weekend, he had established four new South Dakota records in his age division. A member of the Aberdeen Aquaholics Swim Team Andrew is 11-years-old. He won and set new records in the 100-meter individual medley, 50-meter freestyle, 50-meter breaststroke and 50-meter butterfly. Quickly &middot Aberdeen Central boys' basketball fans can meet the team and coaches after Friday night's game against Brandon Valley.

Members of the Aberdeen Swim Club have started getting into the swim of things. The swim club is holding its seventh annual All-American Swim Camp which started Friday at the Barnett Center and concludes on Sunday. For the third year, Bill Wadley, head women's swim coach for Ohio State University, will serve as a clinician at the camp. This year he will be joined by Stephanie Barnes, an Olympic trials qualifier and sectional champion who has previously worked as an assistant swim coach at the University of South Carolina and Auburn University.